The evil scanner !

Recently a public aware programme on TV tested the accuracy of scanners in supermarkets - with woe some results. It seems that discrepancy between the shelf price and the scanned price is common - and usually against the pocket of the customer.
The two biggest sellers of groceries in this country - Coles and Woolworths - have a fair trading policy that states that when there is such a discrepancy the first item is free - and all subsequent numbers of that same item are at the correct price.
Unfortunately, that is not the way it always works. In many cases the checkout chick simply punches in the correct advertised price - and fails to offer the " freebie ".
This is probably not store policy, but it does happen - and the customer misses out on his or her rights.
Customers would do well to take note of items which have a " special offer " price tag over the shelf price. In many cases these have been a legitimate special but the store has not bothered to remove the tag when the special period is over.
For instance, items on special at " Two for $ 3 " may be scanned at the correct shelf price of $ 1.75 each for weeks unless an alert customer makes a claim.
It must be a titanic task to correlate the shelf price of the hundreds of items on special each week with the scanner, but that is what supermarkets are in the business of doing. The problem is that some are not doing it well - and that is costing customers money !